American politics

2012

Changing the game

MY COMMENT from Monday that Barack Obama "is probably getting re-elected" was controversial, so I'll unpack the thinking here. The death of Osama bin Laden obviously hasn't created a national consensus around re-electing Mr Obama, and it hasn't eradicated every objection to the first term of his presidency—including, as several commenters pointed out, the entirely fair complaint that Mr Obama has broken his promise to overhaul the Bush-era security state. Nor can Mr Obama claim all the credit for Mr bin Laden's death—the successful mission was the culmination of a decade-long effort by members of both parties and America's national-security apparatus. Finally, the 2012 election isn't going to be a referendum on the war on terror; economic concerns will probably be more important than national-security issues. Hardly anyone sees terrorism as the most important issue facing America.

For these reasons and others Mr Obama obviously could be defeated next year. I'm predicting that it's now less likely for two reasons. The first is that the strike against Mr bin Laden changes fundamental aspects of the political narrative—about Democrats in general, and about Mr Obama himself. The second is that the likely Republican candidates, and the vocal Republican base, have been focused on criticising Mr Obama personally, and some of their complaints have now been rebutted.

With regard to the Democrats, the issue is that for decades they have been tagged as a party of weaklings: soft on crime, squeamish on terrorism, and content to leave America's security to the mercy of liberal fanaticism about the emerging world order. You may think this criticism unfair, or that the Republican approach to law and order is thuggish, but it's clearly been an electoral albatross. Spare a thought for John Kerry or Michael Dukakis. It didn't keep Mr Obama from being elected the first time, but it would have been revived as a theme in any opponent's 2012 campaign. Just Sunday, for example, the conservative writer Glenn Reynolds was musing that Mr Obama is so weak on foreign policy he "could only wish for such success" as Mr Carter. In killing Mr bin Laden the current Democratic administration has acquired a national-security credential.

For Mr Obama himself, the strike provides a tacit rejoinder to the explicit and implicit arguments that he's somehow too weird or foreign to be president. I actually think Mr Obama has more responsibility for the position he's been in than we usually acknowledge; he was the guy who made his own biography the central selling point of his first presidential campaign, and he pushed his personal experiences as a political credential more aggressively than most candidates. But although he stoked the interest in his background, it's been twisted into paranoid and bigoted forms, as evidenced by the obsession over his birth certificate. Ordering the strike that killed the al-Qaeda leader can be taken as evidence that despite his time in the madrassa, Mr Obama is not in fact a terrorist sympathiser.

The strike also challenges the notion that Mr Obama hasn't been assertive enough as president. One recurring complaint about the president is that he is not a strong advocate for his own ideas, placing too much responsibility in the hands of congressional Democrats and giving away too many concessions to Republicans. Killing Mr bin Laden was an unforced event. People weren't clamouring for it, and most of them, including perhaps George W Bush, were resigned to the idea that it wouldn't happen. This does not mean Mr Obama gets a free pass from now on. But we can expect some boost in his supplies of voter confidence, in addition to a jump in the more mutable area of approval ratings.

Let's put this in different terms using the Rasmussen tracking poll as an indicator of how people feel about the president. Before the news about Mr bin Laden, 26% of voters strongly approved of Mr Obama, and 36% strongly disapproved. The total split was 49% approving and 50% disapproving, meaning that 23% of voters somewhat approve, and 24% somewhat disapprove. There's an emotive component to the strong feelings, and that does reflect policy considerations, most notably health-care reform, but it also includes the personal animus discussed above. That means Republicans have had an incentive to play to their base, because that's where their greater relative advantage lies—in the ferocity of the opposition, rather than its size. And although moderates determine the outcomes of elections, the base influences the issues that are foregrounded in the primary process and the tone of proceedings. The news about Mr bin Laden changes things. We would expect it to diminish the strength of the disapproval, if not its size. That could push Republicans to a different strategic approach, one more focused on moderates, as they enter the primaries.

With those considerations in mind, I would argue that when we're trying to predict whether an event will influence an election, the important thing isn't strictly what happened. It's what happened given the expectations and assumptions about the players in question. If the expectations and assumptions change, so does the game. That's what happened this weekend. (And that's why this is different than, for example, George H.W. Bush's quick success in the Gulf War.) If the Republicans are going to win they have to update their strategy. Not a theoretically impossible shift. My colleague argues below that they will do it; certainly, as I said yesterday, there are some candidates who would be better at it than others. Either way, the clock is ticking.

Alright you hate the guy. Understood. Thirty percent of the population shares your views and looks at this incident as a nobody who got lucky. But for those who might possibly vote for Obama under *some* circumstances, i.e. the other 70% of the population, this was a moment of exceptional leadership. You're not going to convince them otherwise. So while I don't think this gets Obama re-elected, I do think it makes his foreign policy credentials bulletproof.

He started from pretty humble origins, divorced parents, moved around a lot, absent mom. From there, he became president of the Harvard Law review, graduated from Columbia wrote a best selling book that propelled him to wealth and fortune, got elected senator from Illinois and then got himself elected president.

He's undeniably a very smart guy.

He's also smart enough to admit that he went to Law School and thus should probably defer to the professionals in the military when it comes to operational details.

I would also expect him to hire a mechanic to fix Airforce One but that would not cast a doubt to his competence.

Now, I don't know, but I suspect that finding the multi millionaire head of a terrorist organization with thousands of followers in an unfriendly country is a tad more complex than changing the brake fluid.

The early Bush era triumph of ideology over the professionals in the Pentagon (Phase 1: Remove Saddam Phase 2: ??????? Phase 3: Profit) is what got us into this mess.

The Republicans will be hard pressed to find anyone to beat Obama, even if the economy continues to do poorly.

They have, literally, no one. They have played to their base, which is great, but an increasingly hatefilled and outdated segment. I mean today they are trying to push legislation to curtail abortions, to the level that if you are a company and you have a health insurance provider who covers abortion, you will lose tax credits. I mean really, that may play well in North Dakota, but NA is basically a square with a gas foundation that technology from other states is going to extract.

Republicans just have put forth nothing. And the Ryan budget is the most terrible thing I have ever seen. Can you imagine if you were the leader of a company, and you had a large/increasing cost, and your solution was to assign it to a wholly-owned subsidy just to take it off the official books? Well, there you have the Ryan plan on Medicare. It's so terrible I don't know what else to say. How do you decrease costs and improve the economy by inserting yet another middleman, who takes a profit and provides no medical service, and then sticking the costs to seniors who were otherwise spending their money in our consumer driven economy? It's bogglingly stupid. And so are most of the Republican ideas.

Course his idea to get $3 trillion in tax breaks to the richest in the world was also hilarious. Especially because the IRS reported about a month later that in 2008, the ACTUAL tax rate collected on the 400 highest earners (After deductions and loop holes, etc) was 19%. NINETEEN PERCENT! And their average income was $340 million / year. Hahah obviously we need more tax cuts.

Obama actually purged large parts of the Bush-era intelligence community shortly after his election. Given their incorrect intelligence leading to the Iraq War and their inability to catch bin Laden for 10 years, it was probably one his better decisions. I give him some major props for it.

The 2012 election will likely be about the economy though. I wouldn't even be sure that healthcare reform will be that big of an issue. People must be burnt out on that topic. I imagine they will care more about the price of gasoline and their unemployed brother-in-law than slow moving legislation going into effect in 2014, but maybe the Republicans will still push it as an issue since the TP cares about so much.

I think that we will have to see how this plays out - right now it looks to me like many of Obama's platforms on which he ran have been eliminated (opposition to targeted assassinations, enhanced interrogations and other W era policies) is now impossible. That will have an unknown effect on Obama's base and support.

The bungling, so far, of the management of the aftermath doesn't bode well, either, there are already multiple stories about what happened, when it happened and how it happened and none of these make Obama look all that competent as a leader or whatever.

If you look at the White House photographs of the event Obama couldn't look less like a leader - he looks, to me, like a naif in golf clothes, who got pulled into an event that was way over his head and that the adults in the room were running things.

I think that the article says more about the author's desire to see Obama reelected than it does what is happening out here in voter land. I don't personally like Obama's style or policies and I don't buy the myth that he is smart and competent so maybe I am looking at these things through that filter.

To summarize your (correct, I think) argument, this will not be a plus for Mr. Obama's re-election, so much as the removal of a negative.

But the removal (or, if you prefer, substantial reduction) of that negative is still likely to help him out. If the Republicans mount a credible candidate, that may be significant; if they do not, it will be irrelevant. IMHO, there is at least an outside chance that a viable Republican candidate will emerge. Certainly, I am praying for that, for the good of my party and my nation.

JAR, that's kind of interesting thing to notice. Not only are the 30% on either side unpersuadable, but they seem transparently opaque, so they are also unpersuasive. Basically, that leaves the center as one more group that only listens to itself. So much for that part of my self-righteousness.

This goes into the bucket where you put things you overthink. You could have just said, this was a good thing, and that will tend to help the President in some way, shape or form. I think that's the normal reaction. I'm not sure what else changes. I think you focus too much on silly stuff that people say about the President as if it matters much.

Too soon to tell, too much in flux to know. In the end it's still about the Economy, framed within the short month or two before the election- which basically means, who knows.

But what I do think this event reinforces is Obama's formidable poker face. A lot of people spend a lot of time trying to attach labels to him, and some may stick, for a while- but he also has a pretty consistent knack for surprising everyone. Whether that works in his favour I'm not sure, but as his opponent I'd find it terribly disconcerting.

"With those considerations in mind, I would argue that when we're trying to predict whether an event will influence an election, the important thing isn't strictly what happened. It's what happened given the expectations and assumptions about the players in question. If the expectations and assumptions change, so does the game."

True, but that would be more important if the expectations and assumptions corresponded to the desires and wishes of a constituent that was in play. It seems to me that the people who tend to be most enthused by the taking out of Osama Bin Laden also tend to be right leaning, and won't let that one fact sway them from other, more pressing economic concerns. And the more leftist contingent of the American populace, which Obama would have to count on to come out in strong numbers, especially in the swing states, is not nearly as enthused about this whole affair, at least not enough to view it as a rallying point.
This would have done wonders for Republicans in 2008, but I doubt it will do much for a Democrat in 2012.

I think Obama will win re-election. But it will have nothing to do with this, but rather that the Republicans are not going to run a candidate that has any resonance with the public, and the incumbent will be able to use his position to ride into another term.

You are right that it will force Republicans to change the game plan, but the 2012 election is coming down to economy and personalities -- and in a contest of personalities, Obama has a major edge over the competition.

I don't agree with your assumptions. Entry into Ivy League schools is influenced by many things - after all, Bush went there. If getting an MBA or law degree from Harvard or Yale is an indicator of genius then we need to review impressions of W. The Harvard Law Review is a political election, Obama has no published papers and no one from the Review has every come forward to talk about his intellect. You may prefer his style and I respect that preference - I don't share it. Obama, off the teleprompter, is a windbag who can't make a coherent point or at least can't make one that is politically expedient (bitter clingers, anyone?) and I just don't see a towering intellect.

My point, which I didn't make well, is that Obama's 2008 platform - which was popular enough to get him elected - was that deficit spending was bad, enhanced interrogations were bad, targeted assassinations were bad and that transparency was good. In each case I agreed with 2008 Obama.

Now he has advanced policies that are worse than Bush's in every regard in the areas that were his platform while getting elected. When/if Obama runs on his record he will have to justify himself to his base as well as the undecided people and I don't think that riding on the coat tails of intelligence gathered in Bush's second term is going to make a big difference.

Speaking of changing the game, "Rick Santorum and Jon Huntsman on Tuesday took steps toward formally joining a still-forming GOP field," according to MSNBC (actually AP). They have a play-by-play analysis of the still-forming GOP presidential field as of yesterday.

E.G.: You might want to choose a different pic to support your "Obama as warrior" meme. He looks like he's already gnawed his way through his fingernails and is now munching on his upper digits. Kinda got that deer in the headlights thing going, too.

Santorum is hopeless - he can't be counted on to carry his home state, never had that high of a profile to begin with, and has been out of politics longer than Romney. Perhaps as a VP candidate to burnish the "socially conservative" credentials of a moderate GOP Governor at the head of the ticket.

Speaking of which: Huntsman is an interesting candidate. He has executive experience as a governor and foreign policy experience as an ambassador (which is the best foreign policy experience someone can get short of becoming a secretary of state or member of a Congressional committee that involves international relations). He has promise, but again, you wonder about how much attention he'll attract.

Honestly, the only thing you can say about the Republican field is that there is no front runner. The highest level of support anybody gets is 23%. The average person doesn't care this early in the game.

As for EG's post: Better this time.
This is a feather in Obama's cap. The characterization of him as "so willing to defer to other nations' wishes that he'd be afraid to take out a high value target" lost a lot of weight now that he's openly assassinated a high-value target without the host country's go-ahead.

But that's it. President Obama could be boosted by an improving economic situation, a good-faith attempt at budget compromise with Republicans (even if Republicans reject it), an attempt immigration reform (that might galvanize his Hispanic voter base if Republican dialogue gets out of hand), and of course, continued improvement in Iraq and not-all-hell-breaking-loose in Afghanistan.